Hell No!

Lily Skeleton Cartoon

Click for larger image.

Never Events

I was recently given this list at my workplace. No, not a list of things that happen to Peter Pan and his buddies. This is a serious list of serious occurrences. Meanwhile, since they happen, they are really Rarely Events. Also, if you look at each event, you would probably think that you don't need the three rights, since, for instance, you probably shouldn't be charged for having the wrong kidney removed. So I'm glad to know that I have a right to expect to not be abducted at the hospital and that if I am abducted I should get a report and not be charged for my room while I'm with the kidnappers.

Know your rights, if any of these Never Events happen to you:

• You have a right to be informed by the provider that a “never event” has happened to you.
• You have the right to see a report prepared by the hospital detailing what happened and how it occurred.
• You and your health plan should not be charged for costs and deductibles related to the event. Nor should you be charged for any necessary remediation.

Here is a list of the 28 "serious reportable events" as defined by NQF:

1. Surgery on the wrong body part
2. Surgery performed on the wrong patient
3. Wrong surgical procedures performed on a patient
4. Unintended retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery or other procedure
5. Interoperative or immediately postoperative death in an ASA Class I patient
6. Patient death or serious disability associated with the use of contaminated drugs, devices, or biologics provided by the healthcare facility
7. Patient death or serious disability associated with the use or function of a device in patient care in which the device is used or functions other than intended
8. Patient death or serious disability associated with intravascular air embolism that occurs while being cared for in a healthcare facility
9. Infant discharged to the wrong person
10. Patient death or serious disability associated with patient elopement (disappearance)
    
11. Patient suicide, or attempted suicide, resulting in serious disability while being cared for in healthcare facility
12. Patient death or serious disability associated with a medication error (e.g., errors involving the wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong patient, wrong time, wrong rate, wrong preparation, or wrong route of administration)
13. Patient death or serious disability associated with a hemolytic reaction due to the administration of ABO/HLA incompatible blood or blood products
14. Maternal death or serious disability associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy while being cared for in a healthcare facility
15. Patient death or serious disability associated with hypoglycemia, the onset of which occurs while the patient is being cared for in a healthcare facility
16. Death or serious disability (kernicterus) associated with failure to identify and treat hyperbilirubinemia in neonates
    
17. Stage 3 or 4 pressure ulcers acquired after admission to a healthcare facility
18. Patient death or serious disability due to spinal manipulative therapy
19. Artificial insemination with the wrong donor sperm or wrong egg
20. Patient death or serious disability associated with an electric shock while being cared for in a healthcare facility
21. Any incident in which a line designated for oxygen or other gas to be delivered to a patient contains the wrong gas or is contaminated by toxic substances
22. Patient death or serious disability associated with a burn incurred from any source while being cared for in a healthcare facility
23. Patient death or serious disability associated with a fall while being cared for in a healthcare facility
24. Patient death or serious disability associated with the use of restraints or bedrails while being cared for in a healthcare facility
25. Any instance of care ordered by or provided by someone impersonating a physician, nurse, pharmacist, or other licensed healthcare provider
26. Abduction of a patient of any age
27. Sexual assault on a patient within or on the grounds of a healthcare facility
28. Death or significant injury of a patient or staff member resulting from a physical assault (i.e., battery) that occurs within or on the grounds of a healthcare facility Blue
    

Please tell us what you think of this list.

Dow Down

I know I'm not Mr. Financial News, but just now I noticed that the Dow Jones is down. Down low. Down so low it's not only back where it was in 2003, it's down as low as it was in 2002, and as it was soon after 9/11. It's even as low as it was in 1998 - 10 years ago. If that doesn't quite make sense, you can look at a chart of the Dow over time and see that it goes up, it goes down. It tanked after 9/11, for instance. It just has never dived so far, so fast. And it never quite affected me and everyone I know before.

Definition

This is from Miriam Webster.

Nonpareil: noun Date: 1593

1. an individual of unequaled excellence : paragon
2. a small flat disk of chocolate covered with white sugar pellets b: sugar in small pellets of various colors

Not a bad name for a candy!

How to install Windows XP SP3

UPDATE:

As of now (12/21/2008), this amazing fix described below no longer does the trick.
XP SP3 is completely flaky once again.
Ugggg!!! (Banging head against wall.)

-------------------

Microsoft continues to update and support Windows XP, fortunately.

One way to install Windows XP SP3, is to let your windows updates do it the old-fashioned way. Then one day your computer will wake up and find it has done so. This is what I did and usually do for updates, but after my mother's computer basically died after SP2, I was wary. I let SP3 sit there a few months before letting it install on my computer. After running fine on my computer for awhile, I tried it on my wife's. Hell.

The Problem

For the past few month's her computer running XP professional SP3 had issues:

XP Professional SP3 won't shutdown or go to standby.

After installing XP Professional SP3 on my laptop from windows update, the laptop won't consistently shutdown or go to standby. It will do so the first time after closing the screen, but not the second or more time. It gets stuck on a blue screen saying "preparing to standby".

I brought this up with Dell support who helped me (during the final week of the laptop's warranty) and concluded after some time: uninstall SP3. Yeah, right.

I searched the web several times and didn't find anything helpful. Hence, this post.

The Solution

Today I contacted the big boy. If you didn't know it, Microsoft has free support for Windows SP3. Who get's anything for free nowadays?

To summarize, after over an hour of a chat where most of the time I read email, vacuumed the house, and waited while installer and uninstaller ran, I have the answer.

1. Download the SP3 installer to your desktop. It's a big file.
   
2. Go to your control-panel, select Add/Remove Programs and uninstall Windows SP3. This will take some time, since Safe Mode lives in a parallel universe where time moves slooowly. Reboot when it tells you to.
3. Check if things are OK. (You are on your own here.)
   
4. Now reboot in Safe Mode (hit F8 while booting up, then select Safe Mode)
5. Install SP3.

It works for me now.

Thanks to Vinod from Microsoft, presumably in India, who even called me after the computer was all tucked-in and sleeping normally just to see if I was OK.

It's snowing a little here on this quiet Sunday.

Cheap bullets

Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009

Any of these will make your jaw drop.

Courtesy of Project Censored.

• #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation

• # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA

Leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been meeting to secretly expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with “deep integration” of a more militarized tri-national Homeland Security force. Taking shape under the radar of the respective governments and without public knowledge or consideration, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)—headquartered in Washington—aims to integrate the three nations into a single political, economic, and security bloc.

• # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business

More than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect and provide information on fellow Americans. In return, members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public, and at times before elected officials.

• # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?

A resurgence of US-backed militarism threatens peace and democracy in Latin America. By 2005, US military aid to Latin America had increased by thirty-four times the amount spent in 2000. In a marked shift in US military strategy, secretive training of Latin American military and police personnel that used to just take place at the notorious School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Georgia—including torture and execution techniques—is now decentralized.

• # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets

President Bush has signed two executive orders that would allow the US Treasury Department to seize the property of any person perceived to, directly or indirectly, pose a threat to US operations in the Middle East.

• # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

Author of the bill Jane Harman (D-CA) explains, “We’re studying the phenomenon of people with radical beliefs who turn into people who would use violence.”

• # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking

While the guest worker program in the United States has been praised and recommended for expansion by President Bush, and is likely to be considered by Congress as a template for future immigration reform, human rights advocates warn that the system seriously victimizes immigrant workers. Workers, labor organizers, lawyers, and policy makers say that the program, designed to open up the legal labor market and provide a piece of the American dream to immigrants, has instead locked thousands into a modern-day form of indentured servitude.

• # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly

In light of a declassified Office of Legal Counsel proclamation that the president can secretly change his signing statements at will, we are left exposed to the whims of a secret, unchecked executive agenda.

• #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify

Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupation publicly testified at the four-day Winter Soldier gathering about crimes they committed during the course of battle—many of which were prompted by the orders or policies laid down by superior officers. Such crimes include targeting innocent, unarmed civilians for murder and detention, destroying property, desecrating corpses, severely abusing detainees (often torturing to death), and using corpses for medical practice.

• # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture

The Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) task force was assembled in response to growing evidence that psychologists were not only taking part in procedures that have shocked the senses of humanity around the world, but were in fact in charge of designing those brutal tactics and training interrogators in those techniques.

• # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror

Salvadoran police violently captured community leaders and residents at a July 2007 demonstration against the privatization of El Salvador’s water supply and distribution systems.

• # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind

The architect of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), President Bush’s first senior education advisor, Sandy Kress, has turned the program, which has consistently proven disastrous in the realm of education, into a huge success in the realm of corporate profiteering. After ushering NCLB through the US House of Representatives in 2001 with no public hearings, Kress went from lawmaker—turning on spigots of federal funds—to lobbyist, tapping into those billions of dollars in federal funds for private investors well connected to the Bush administration.

• # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq

Beginning in April 2003, one month after the invasion of Iraq, and continuing for little more than a year, the United States Federal Reserve shipped $12 billion in US currency to Iraq. The US military delivered the bank notes to the Coalition Provisional Authority, to be dispensed for Iraqi reconstruction. At least $9 billion is unaccounted for due to a complete lack of oversight.

• # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste

Radioactive materials from nuclear weapons production sites are being dumped into regular landfills, and are available for recycling and resale.

• # 15 Worldwide Slavery

Twenty-seven million slaves exist in the world today, more than at any time in human history. As many as 800,000 are trafficked across international borders annually, and up to 17,500 new victims are trafficked across US borders each year, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ). More than 30,000 additional slaves are transported through the US on their ways to other international destinations. Attorneys from the DOJ have prosecuted ninety-one slave trade cases in cities across the United States and in nearly every state of the nation.

• # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights

The 2007 edition of the survey, covering 138 countries, shows an alarming rise in the number of people killed as a result of their trade union activities, from 115 in 2005 to 144 in 2006. Many more trade unionists around the world were abducted or “disappeared.” Thousands were arrested during the year for their parts in strike action and protests, while thousands of others were fired in retaliation for organizing. Growing numbers of trade union activists in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific are facing police brutality and murder as unions are viewed as opponents of corporatist governments.

• # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights

The declaration was passed by an overwhelming majority vote of 143–4. Only the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand voted against the resolution, expressing the view that strong emphasis on rights to indigenous self-determination and control over lands and resources would hinder economic development and undermine “established democratic norms.”

• # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers

In a nationally conducted survey, the Associated Press contacted each state agency that oversees juvenile correction centers and asked for information on the numbers of deaths as well as the numbers of allegations and confirmed cases of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by staff members since January 1, 2004. According to the survey, more than 13,000 claims of abuse were identified in juvenile correction centers around the country from 2004 through 2007—a remarkable total given that the total population of detainees was about 46,000 at the time the states were surveyed in 2007.

• # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction

Consequences of the livestock industry’s globalization include the threat to sustainable development and global food security, destruction of the livelihoods of over one billion people worldwide, smallholder bankruptcies and suicides, and the extinction of some of the world’s hardiest breeds of animals.

• # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record

For the fourth year in a row, US marijuana arrests set an all-time record, according to 2006 FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Marijuana arrests in 2006 totaled 829,627, an increase from 786,545 in 2005. At current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every thirty-eight seconds, with marijuana arrests comprising nearly 44 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.

• # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials are considering a first strike nuclear option to be used anywhere in the world a threat may arise. Former armed force chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France, and the Netherlands authored a 150-page blueprint calling for urgent reform of NATO, and a new pact drawing the US, NATO, and the European Union (EU) together in a “grand strategy” to tackle the challenges of an “increasingly brutal world.” The authors of the plan insist that “the first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.”

• # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid

In August 2007, one of the biggest and best-known American charity organizations, CARE, announced that it was turning down $45 million a year in food aid from the United States government. CARE claims that the way US aid is structured causes rather than reduces hunger in the countries where it is received.

• # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs

While the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) turns a blind eye, drug companies are making false, unsubstantiated, and misleading claims in their advertising, often withholding mandated disclosure of dangerous side effects. Though companies are required to submit their advertisements to the FDA, the agency does not review them before they are released to the public.

• # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror

In a parliament Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee session held to debate the ethics of renewing Japan’s “anti-terror law,” which commits Japan to providing logistical support for coalition forces operating in Afghanistan, Yukihisa Fujita opened the session by stating, “I would like to talk about the origin of this war on terrorism, which was the attacks of 9/11, . . . When discussing these anti-terror laws we should ask ourselves, what was 9/11? And what is terrorism?”

• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

Timing suggests that Spitzer was likely a target of a White House and Wall Street operation to silence one of its most dangerous and vocal critics of their handling of the current financial market crisis.

Armchair Activist: Inferior Secretary Kempthorne

The presumably outgoing Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has decided to out-do James Watt. He recently announced changes which undermine the Endangered Species Act.

According to the Center For Biological Diversity the new regulations would:
- Exempt thousands of federal activities from review under the Endangered Species Act;
- Eliminate checks and balances of independent oversight;
- Limit which effects can be considered harmful;
- Prevent consideration of a project's contribution to global warming;
- Set an inadequate 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project in the instances when they are invited to participate -- or else the project gets an automatic green light;
- Enable large-scale projects to go unreviewed by dividing them into hundreds of small projects.

Express your righteous indignation by taking action.

Wondertime Magazine Sale

My wife's magazine, Wondertime, is on sale again at Amazon. You can subscribe for only $5 - at least for now. If you are a parent of a newborn to 10 or 12 year old, it's worth a read.

Wondertime's website is here.

Amazon's sale is here. (Click on the 'Sale' link in the middle of the page.)

Happy OneWeb Day

Happy OneWeb Day to you.
Happy OneWeb Day to you.
Happy OneWeb to the internet.
Happy OneWeb Day to you!

700 Billion Dollars in Slop

Last week, the Bush administration proposed a $700 Billion bailout to the formerly-free market.

Will this help banks? Help business? Help you? Who will get a cut? You probably already know.

Here's how it will be allocated. (Vegetarians watch-out!)

American Dream Chart

This is how the American Dream (AD) has fared over ten years.

American Dream reality is in the top chart.
American Dream concern is in the bottom chart.



Sorry, I cannot predict the future.

ReStore’s Decon Team stars on This Old House

Some of you know that I volunteer at the Center for Ecological Technology.

Part of their work is a ReStore located in Springfield which does deconstruction. Decon is when a building is taken apart and the pieces are reused or recycled - as opposed to demolition where a building is demolished and what's left ends up in a dumpster where perhaps, if we're lucky, only part of it might be recycled. The land owner is charged a fee which is usually less than traditional demolition, plus they get a deduction for donating materials. The materials are sold as used or excess in the ReStore. Voila!

After that intro, you'll be happy to know that our old favorite This Old House, which is based here in Massachusetts, is featuring our very own ReStore to start off their new season.

ReStore’s Decon Team stars on This Old House
Thursday, October 2 at 8 p.m.
Thursday, October 9 at 8 p.m.
Check local listings

Settle in with your popcorn and watch us completely dismantle a 1,900 square foot home in Weston, MA on the national season premier of This Old House! The ReStore decon team salvaged more than 85% of the home’s materials—many of which are being used in the construction of two Habitat for Humanity homes in Springfield. The popular PBS television series will also feature a visit to our store in Springfield in its second episode, broadcast on October 9.

Local Daily Hampshire Gazette Story

Here's an excerpt from another story in our local paper which might give you a sense of Northampton, Massachusetts.

The 'humane micropolis'
Northampton has evolved on its own terms

From this perspective, Northampton may be described as truly a "Humane Micropolis"- a humane metropolis writ small. It is blessed of course with a congenial physical setting, a diverse housing stock, a broad-based economy, cultural vitality, and a strong sense of community. And Northampton has long been energized and enriched intellectually through past residents like Joseph Parsons Sr., Jonathon Edwards, Sojourner Truth, Samuel Hill, Sophia Smith, E. H. R. Lymon, William Fenno Pratt, Calvin and Grace Coolidge, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Newhall Look, and their counterparts today such as . . . (fill in your favorites).

We are an educational town, an arts town, and a business town, but we are also a tolerant and welcoming community to people of various life pursuits, lifestyles, and life experience. The vitality of Northampton is not confined to its downtown but is discovered in its back streets and hidden neighborhoods like the Montview Town Farm near the Connecticut River levee, the African American Heritage Trail in Florence, the renovated mills along Riverside Drive in Bay State, or Water Street in Leeds. Regardless of neighborhood economic status, our side streets are graced with impromptu patches of wildflowers, sunflowers, tomatoes, blackberries and ferns, overshadowed by iconic oaks, maples, sycamore, white pine, and spruce trees. Our expanding system of rail trails encourages off-street exploration by bike or foot, while promoting fitness and casual neighborly chit-chat.

And this is a caring community, as attested by the faith-based and nonprofit services such as the Survival Center, the Grove Street Inn, the Manna meal program, and the winter cot program, When the Meadowbrook apartment complex was faced with gentrification, a coalition of housing advocates, the mayor's office, and tenants orchestrated a sale of the property to a new owner willing to continue affordable rents for many of its units. Village Hill, site of the former Northampton State Hospital, is now the scene of an ambitious redevelopment effort in which half of its 207 authorized dwelling units will be reserved for individuals and families eligible for "affordable housing."

To suggest that Northampton has evolved organically without a preconceived plan is not to claim that planning is irrelevant here. We have had planning and zoning since at least the 1940s. And we have plenty of planning disputes today such as the proposed hotel near Pulaski Park, the landfill expansion, Village Hill, North Avenue Woods, and a possible new Rt. 91 interchange. But the planning and zoning process essentially is reactive to specific proposals and procedural in setting "rules of the game" for land use changes.

Massachusetts is unusual among states in not requiring zoning to be "in accordance with comprehensive plan" and that has perhaps been to our benefit. Planning here deals with needed infrastructure, including "green infrastructure" like conservation areas, bikeways, improved walkability, and tree planting. But fortunately, the funky pre-zoning neighborhoods in Florence, Bay State, and near downtown have been little affected by zoning which typically ratifies the status quo rather than create nonconforming use problems. Post-zoning subdivisions like the Ryan Road area are more akin to standard suburbs across the country than to the older parts of Northampton.

Northampton has mercifully been spared top-down, macro plans in vogue from the Garden City era to Urban Renewal in the 1960s. Unlike architect and developer-driven concepts of urban design, the Humane Metropolis has few aesthetic preconceptions. Ecology is "messy" and so are older communities like ours. But who wants to live in an "ideal community" planned by outside experts when we can live in the "Paradise of America" (aka "The Humane Micropolis"), a work always in process of adaptation by its fortunate inhabitants.

Rutherford Platt, a resident of Florence, is Emeritus Professor of Geography at UMass Amherst and author/editor of several books on cities and land use.

Local Daily Hampshire Gazette Story

Here's a nice local story.


A wedding ceremony and reception for the books

By MARY CAREY

Staff WriterMonday, September 8, 2008

Photo: GORDON DANIELS

Newlyweds Priscilla Miner and Adam Novitt, left, enjoy their reception in the Forbes Library Reading Room on Sunday.

PELHAM - Adam Novitt met Priscilla Miner because she was reading an interesting book. It made it all the more fitting that they would get married in a library.

Naturally, they chose the Pelham Library, where Novitt was appointed librarian last year.

The reception was at the Forbes Library, after which they planned to pedal home on their tandem bike.

The pair met at the Woodstar Cafe, in Northampton, between last Christmas and New Year's Day. A graduate of the Conway School of Design, where she is now working, Miner, 34, was reading a reprint of the 1966 revitalization plan for lower Manhattan.

"I thought, oh my God, here's a girl that's not reading a book about urban planning - she's reading an actual plan," Novitt recalled.

Their first date was cross country skiing at Notchview, near Turners Falls, where a patron of the Pelham Library recognized Novitt, who had recently started working there.

"It was a kind of weird celebrity moment on our first date, a Valley celebrity moment," Novitt said.

"We keep bees together," Miner explained about some of the interests they're pursuing together.

Raising chickens is another, and Miner is now doing a job Novitt used to do, archiving maps at the Northampton Department of Public Works.

They got engaged on Miner's birthday at the Skinner House in June. Novitt picked the spot because the house can be seen from so many places. "So I'm constantly reminded of it," he said. "Plus, it's very Valley."

Why a library?

They started talking about getting married at the library, soon after.

"For both of us, the wedding is a coming-out party into the community, and libraries are really community centers," Novitt said.

"I love the idea that whenever we go back to the Forbes from now on, we'll have the great memory of having all of our family and friends there," Miner said.

Miner's father, the Rev. Canon Robert Miner, officiated at Sunday's ceremony.

Side Street Cafe in Florence catered, and the wine was from a vineyard in Connecticut at which Miner's grandfather John Miner had helped plant the first grapes in the 1940s. The Heritage Pops Orchestra played, and Bread Euphoria, in Williamsburg, made the cake shaped like a honeycomb.

Visitors to Forbes for the rest of the month can check out books Novitt and Miner recommended for the rotating book display there.

They include works about cat behavior, beekeeping, local politics and backyard farming - and the Erie Canal, where the couple will be honeymooning on a houseboat.

Armchair Activist: Product Placement on News

I just got this bulletin from Commercial Alert. KVVU is doing product placement during newscasts. Shame, shame.

Just click on the link below to tell KVVU what you think.

Dear Friends,

While product placement hidden advertisements have long infiltrated network television shows, the Meredith Broadcasting Group has hit a new low: product placement on news broadcasts.

The New York Times reports that anchors on KVVU, a Fox affiliate in Las Vegas, sit with cups of McDonald's iced coffee on their desks during morning news show. Executives at the station have acknowledged that the McDonald's coffee is part of a six-month promotion.

Product placement on newscasts runs contrary to the ethics of impartial journalism and takes advantage of viewers who are expecting the morning news, not an advertisement. The news should be kept separate from commercial ventures and news anchors should not be used to hawk products.

Please click here to tell Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Broadcasting Group, to take product placement out of newscasts.

Sincerely,

Raissa Howera, Commercial Alert

Census Bureau Cleans Up Labor Day History

I just got this from the Census Bureau, along with a number of handy statistics.

Labor Day 2008: Sept. 1

The first observance of Labor Day is believed to have been a parade of 10,000 workers on Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, organized by Peter J. McGuire, a Carpenters and Joiners Union secretary. By 1893, more than half the states were observing a "Labor Day" on one day or another, and Congress passed a bill to establish a federal holiday in 1894. President Grover Cleveland signed the bill soon afterward, designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day.

Isn't it cute? Here's one statistic from them.

There are about 288,000 moonlighters who work full time at both jobs.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Have they taken leave of their census? (I've always wanted to write that sentence.) The Census Bureau got part of the story on the origins of Labor Day right, but they left out that the modern Labor Day celebrated around most of the world is celebrated on a different day of the year. On May 1st, also known as May Day, International Workers' Day, workers commemorate the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886. Within five years the International Workers' Day was celebrated worldwide.

Fossils and CO2

Someone recently pointed out to me that CO2 levels are the highest they have been for 100 million years. I remarked that it was because we are burning 100 million year old fuel.

My statement was somewhat true. While CO2 levels were probably a little higher 130 thousand years ago, fairly close to the dawn of mankind, it was quite a long time ago. The fuels we use today, so-called fossil fuels including oil, gas, and coal, were formed over millions of years from decomposed organic matter. The orders of magnitude are different, but the gist is the same.

Armchair Activist: The Reply

Let's say you followed the Armchair Activist's advice and clicked away at the action alert at a website for a cause you care about. You just need to care a little about your issue, because it is so easy to contact the overlords. As promised, they will hear your pleas.

I contacted the President and Vice President of the United States about something a while back. I don't remember what exactly. It may have been that drilling in Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). It may may have been me asking for the release of Pol Brennan (OK, it wasn't that, because I only heard about his unjust incarceration today). But it was something important which I care deeply about. I'm sure of it.

But as you see, the responses are rather generic. But do not be disillusioned. Someone out there keeps track of your emails and each email is a vote. Remember if one person sends a letter there must be a million who feel the same way and have not done son. And if one sends an email, there must be at least a hundred ... errr... ten thousand who feel the same way. It's a vote. It's a poll. It's you petitioning your representatives to do something.

With no further ado, here's the reply from George W. Bush to my email message on an important topic:

From: comments@whitehouse.gov
To:
Sent: Wed 4/30/2008 3:45 PM
Subject:

On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.

We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.

Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House cannot respond to every message.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.

As you can see, W took a little less time to write as I did, and he didn't even bother to put a subject on his email. And here's what I received from Vice President Cheney:

From: vice_president@whitehouse.gov
To:
Sent: Wed 4/30/2008 3:45 PM
Subject:


Thank you for e-mailing Vice President Cheney. Your comments, suggestions and concerns are important to him. Unfortunately, because of the large volume of e-mail received, the Vice President cannot personally respond to each message. However, members of the Vice President's staff consider and report citizen ideas and concerns. Please visit the White House web site for the most up-to-date information on Presidential initiatives, current events, and topics of interest to you.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.

Eerily familiar and even sent at the same exact minute and also without a subject. Who indeed is pulling the strings over there at the White House?

Watch It Shred

Somehow there is a bit of primitive satisfaction to see something torn asunder or see something burn up. And it has to be rendered to bits, to dust or to ashes. Nobody lights a fire and walks away. They want to see the log burn up completely. We watch the whole movie, play the whole game, finish the plate. There is anticipation of the result, the finality.

Watch It Shred is a collection of the worst of our society. You can watch utter waste and futility while bowling balls, computers, pumpkins, skis, tires - you name it - get ground up in an industrial shredder. The skis appear to be shiny new and have boots in their bindings, and hey I could use a pair. I'm not picky. But when you think about it, many of these things could find a home somewhere and, given their fate, question whether they should have been created in the first place. They clog our landfills and get shipped overseas for someone else to sift through to separate the toxics from the precious. The computers may be old. The tires will be recycled into asphalt. Can you imagine shredding your old love-letters or those crates of LPs which give you grief because you can no longer play them?

Go ahead and watch these industrial snuff films and welcome that funny little feeling as you see familiar objects ground to nothing. But please do me a favor and shop less, fix things before discarding, use Freecycle (to find a new home for or to acquire things), and keep giving hand-me-down clothes to your younger cousin.